in doing to with the elimination of the open space and marks forever. i urge you to re-evaluate this submittal. thank you very much. >> thank you, president miguel, directtors. it seems there is a time for a review of category d and how potential historic resources are checked in the o.t.c., over-the-counter permit process. three pieces of the application and architectural plans and a set of drawings are typical. the scope of work must match between the form 8 and the architectural description of the scope of work, but most importantly the structural drawings in the architecture drawings should match in terms of the scope of work. planners don't stamp the structural sheets of an over-the-counter permit application or any structural

sheets on any applications for that matter. one must study the structural details to understand whether or not they're consistent with what's shown in the architectural plan because an application that state it is not making exterior changes could incorporate structural details that require them. just like when we were in third grade and someone wouldn't fess up to whispering in the back of the class, we all have to stay after school because a few people can't behave. unfortunately t resources need that protection, so hopefully we can see that happen. on 1601 clay street, the first st. john's united church, the friends of st. john's went this week to cokero, an assisted living center on bush street. it's a fabulous originally jewish synagogue remade into an assisted living center which

conveniently had a vacant lot next door. the vacant lot was built as housing for the seniors. in addition, some of the housing was accomplished within the synagogue building itself. when one goes into that two-story space that a recent project sponsor said couldn't be made seismically retrofitted and see how beautiful it is and how wonderful it would be to spend one's final days in such a beautiful space, the light, the structure, the ornament, it just says not only is the preservation alternative for 1601 market street for st. john's feasible, it is also desirable. finally, the shipwright's cottage, the san francisco fire department responded -- [bell ringing] >> responded by joe fox to a fire call there on monday night. they put the fire out quickly, thankfully, and no one was hurt

and everyone survived it and nothing was damaged except an ax through the door to make sure fire was out. the demolition company next door is on end by joe and mike cassidy and make we could ask mike and joe to keep an eye on the cottage until they become the owner on january 1, 2011. [bell ringing] thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> commissioners, marilyn lee. i am dismaid at president miguel's closing of the period for public comment on both the 2004 and 2009 housing elements deir. many neighborhood organizations had asked for continuation to the end of september to allow for full comment on the deir. and note that as president

miguel is invested with the power, is not invested with the power to make unilaterally such important decisions according to both the board rules and robert's rules of order. his role is as facilitator and the commission is the body and the individuals that act on such an important decision. thank you. president miguel: is there further general public comment? if not, general public comment is closed. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: while we don't comment on public comment, i would ask staff to please talk to mr. hart about how our calendar really works and that items are never really closed. there is a category for comment on items that have been closed that staff can go over that a little bit more with the speaker. not today, but privately. >> thank you. commissioners, you can move forward on the calendar and

beginning the regular calendar with nine, 2010.0790u, e-distribution report. >> good afternoon, commissioners annmarie rodgers and this is an amendment to the code and a hearing that you requested to weigh in on additional planning and land use applications if proposed ordinance would provide for documents of 10 pages or longer and all city departments and city officials should primarily do them by e-document and i'll go over that in a little bit in more detail. this ordinance was sponsored by the supervisor and i would like to introduce his aid to talk about the origin of the ordinance. >> thank annmarie and president miguel and commissioners, on behalf of the commissioner, that was 30 seconds going through my

office today on my way here today on planning commission documentation that we dutifully read every page. what the impetus to this particular piece of legislation was is we don't need all the paper. we are happy to receive them electronically and is preferable to receive documentation electronically as it is far easier to search in case we need to review a specific division of the planning document and e.i.r. and a c.u. or whatever it that might come to us. what gave rise to it is the last straw was when we got the, i think, three boxes worth of documentation on the market octavia area plan. and at that point there's just more paper than you can absorb. so a couple of years later is a quick amendment to the administrative code that very simply says if you can have a document distributed widely or outside of your own purview that

is over 10 pages long, save it electronically on a disk or email as the controller does with all the current reports and receive an e-copy and it is posted on the website with the link in the email to the website should we want to open the document. i know there was some concern about commissioners and members of the board of supervisors that prefer to have all their documentation in hard copy for purposes of the meeting. that is all fine and wonderful and there is a specific language in the amendment to the administrative code that allows members of boards, commissions, and anyone that's subject to the brown act or sunshine ordinance to receive those hard copies just as a matter of course upon request. and if you had a standing request that you just receive hard copies for all documents coming before the planning commission, so be it. no problem at all. what we really try to avoid is the excessive amount of papers

that is produced and distributed with no real purpose and without any kind of request. they just rise to a certain amount of distribution or distributees and is not necessary to do it in paper and we prefer to have that in an electronic media format or a link to the website where the data resides to look through the report, appeal, e.i.r. and the itch complementation is ak -- and the implementation is accurate and with that, we will entertain questions if you have any. otherwise, i would ask for copies to be distributed to you and a copy for the record -- just kidding. thank you for your time today. always a pleasure to come and see you. and turn it back to annmarie or a question for me if you have

one. >> short presentation. the department is recommending approval of this ordinance. the report before you discusses the implications and the impacts to the bodies such as yourself and the general public and the important thing is there is nothing in the ordinance that prohibits us from printing copies on request. and the intent of the ordinance is to prevent us from printing in advance frivolous copies that may or may not be need and documents that last year the planning department used two million and doesn't include paper purchase for the production of e.i.r. which may be close to the same number. so people from the public or this commission, if you so choose to continue to receive printed copies could do so upon request, but it would in general encourage us and provide more incentive to transition into e-copies. that's my report. >> thank you. president miguel: commissioner olague.

vice president olague: i am one of the ones that raised concerns because we are required to read these documents. and what i found in the past is when there's any thing that is distributed electronically, what happens frequently because i don't always have time to sit in front of a computer and i read on the bus and we have a lot of -- i have to carry the documents around and read when i can read them and i don't use a laptop. i should, i suppose. i'll get one eventually. but -- i do use a computer at home. but it's very inconvenient and what i have found in the past is it just places the burden on us to print copies so in it long run it's not saving paper when it comes to the requirements that we have to read these documents. that is why i want the ability to request printed copies because we're required to read through this material and it's not always convenient for me to

sit in front of a computer to do so. and with the e.i.r.'s, they're impossible to read in one sitting actually. i go back and forth and put tags and highlight and this sort of thing. and also, there is still a digital divide and i just hope that this doesn't also apply to members of the public or the members of the public do have the ability to request certain materials and i don't know what the laws are around that now, but not everyone in the public that might want to see some of the materials has -- so at some point i want to have even if it is a memo from staff to be reminded of what's made available to the public in terms of printed copies and -- okay. it's in here? i must have overlooked that one. and that sort of thing. just want to make sure people have access to those things. and another thing is sometimes we need to look at drawings here

that are -- that is not something that is very easily done on computer screen. and sometimes there's a request for three dimensional things and that sort of thing. i think there's rps why at least me -- i don't know if other members of the commission, but i speak for myself and why i think sometimes it applies differently at least to this commission. >> i think this commission in the past has made it clear the preference is to continue at this point receiving printed copies and the department is able to do so and the report before you describes our practice for giving copies to the public. and for environmental documents we do print a bunch up in advance in anticipation that people will want them. this will require us to only print copies upon request. that would be a change in our practices. vice president olague: okay. thank you. i think it's a good idea. i'm not sure that other departments that receive some of

these are actually required to read the entire document. something we're required to do. prauf president miguel: commissioner antonini. commissioner antonini: i do think it's a good idea although we found out in the report that 2/3 of the paper is from paper products or recycled paper, so we're pretty effective about doing that part of it. a lot of it is a renewable resource. but we still do want to save the cost of the paper and the labor and all the other things. but there are some of us who do prefer to read something on a page rather than on a computer, and also gives you the ability to read it standing up whereas commissioner olague has pointed out sometimes on transit unless you have a laptop and jiggling around too much and if you do want the printed copy, to print it yourself is expensive and time consuming and i doubt most computers that most people have are not capable of printing all the color and large format documentation. so i would prefer to continue

getting mine in hard copy and as far as the public is concerned, i agree if there is a request, they should get it in hard copy and probably not be charged for that. i don't know whether that would be something the supervisors would have to talk about and whether they had to charge duplications costs very somewhat minor amounts but certainly nothing significant. so i would still like that to happen and i would assume we just automatically would get the paperwork until we are told we don't want it. >> i think if this body indicates today and seems like by majority that you would continue to like to get printed copies, we could do so. you have told us in the past your preference is printed copies and our expectation is unless we hear differently, your current expectation is printed copies. commissioner antonini: thank you. >> it allows individual commissioners to say they want it or don't want it. it doesn't have to be a policy -- >> that is correct.

>> it doesn't have to be a policy of the commission. >> search is a nice thing, but once you found something and want to go back and look at other things, electronics don't work. if you are flipping back and forth in plans between elevations and the floor plan and try to do that on the computer unless you have two screens, which we have in the office, but i don't at home, it's really difficult to do. so for some things i think paper still continues to be a better medium. that said, there are two little known provisions in the legislation that you might not -- that you probably missed. one is that you can send your printing costs to supervisor's office -- >> great. fantastic. that's in there. and secondly, they're going to be putting in in the budget for the coming fiscal year i have had or equivalent for all of us. vice president olague: that is great. >> a very unique reading of the legislation to be sure.

vice president olague: can we request that be part of our motion? view view it would be fine. sounds good. i do want to allay your fears about paper disappearing completely. the legislation specifically says that where department demonstrates here verbatim and the department demonstrates the use of paper copies is required by law or standard business practice or to the use of paper copies will best inform members of the public, paper copies are more than able to be used. so as far as your personal kind of use and the public that is used to getting hard copies, none of that is going to change because i'm sure just by sheer force of inertia and print a number of copies of documents just to have available for people that will ultimately request them and that is perfectly fine. it is the frivolous thing that people getting them that don't request them and we are trying to avoid and if you want to send

it to us electronically, we are more than happy to review it online. president miguel: as many of us here will probably remember, when we heard the phrase that computers were going to do away with paper, that's not going to happen. and in some instances i think there's more paper now because of computers perhaps than there was before. and as commissioner sugaya was saying, i have a very, very difficult time comparing sections and comparing alternatives by trying to flip through a document electronically. probably because i came into the field much later in life than my grandchildren did perhaps. so i am not as adept at it, but it's the way a lot of people whose research documents in the manner in which we have to is our work and actually do their

research. i find nothing wrong with the legislation. i understand it and the reason for it. and so hopefully it will save a few trees here. is there public comment on this item? >> members of the commission, ray hart, open commission and i would like to focus on the benefit of the electronic format availability to the members of the public and also to the benefit of the city. i know when i look into what is available online, i will go to the website and pick up the document and review it online and it might be a 60-page document, but there might be only one or two page which is i really am interested in. b if that is the case, i can print those out at home and the city incurs no cost and save the benefit of having to research that for me if they are not familiar with that document and

i am specifically interested in that aspect, it may take the required 15 minutes of time that is under sunshine required for them to provide to help me find that and if they don't have to look for documents and copy them for me, it saves them time and one of the things in the police commission is they are hiring a second person in their office to handle public information requests and if it was available online, they would save the salary and benefit and the extra work entail there had. the # idea of the sunshine ordinance included that when a person makes a request for a document, they can request it in any format in which it is available. since most documents that we're talking about are produced by a computer, then all of them are available in electronic format and if i want it that way, it

makes no sense to do the printing job. again, wasting city time and energy and incurring citizens who have to pay 10 cents a page or whatever, so there are a lot of benefits. anyone who wants a paper copy can have a copy and send those to the commission secretary and is beneficial for you to use, there is nothing keeping anybody from printing those out and making them available for you because that is preferable. and there may be others who are more comfortable in the electronic format where they can go through and add addendums and make notes in the areas they want to discuss when they come up before the commission. and as a result, they feel more comfortable. so having more flexibility is something that i think is beneficial to not only the citizens in general but to everybody involved in the process. the last thing i would like to comment on is one of the provisions of sunshine also

indicated that in planning ahead in use of systems like computers, one of the things that had to be considered was the use of this to minimize the amount of documents and the waste in both energy and resources in providing documents in the paper format and that is something many departments have not done. [bell ringing] >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is rose pilsen, and i really like the idea about having the data and information for a lot of the paperwork you guys have electronically, but i love trees, that's the other thing. so i don't want to kill a bunch of trees, although a lot of it is recycled anyway. but i have a situation where a lot of standard documents like even e.i.r.'s, they're not necessarily 60 pages and could be 2,000 pages.

and if a member of the public wants a copy and 10 cents a page, that is $200 a pop. and the way to get around it, i guess, would be to sunshine the e.i.r. even though it's publicly available without doing such and getting it as a routine document for a penny a page, but 10 cents a copy for the documents that planning department puts out might be kind of excessive in the end. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> sue hester. i have four comment. number one is, thank you for putting the links online to the planning commission agenda. i do not know that all your constituents know that if you go online, you can link to them because it hasn't been well publicize and i am telling people that are watching. number two is there should be an immediate requirement by the department that all color submissions are filed electronically because it is

tedious, wasteful, and abusive for developers to submit color documents that you have to physically go down to the department and pay 50 cents a page, $1 a page, penny on either side, to copy. you can't get them electronically because they're not filed electronically. number three, you should have staff continue to refine the scope of the documents and the length of the documents. i have filed for every single office approval back to whenever, to the first planning commission. the approvals have gotten massive. and i agree with commissioner miguel's comment that computers made it worse. we have a lot of superfluous language that says this isn't an issue, this isn't an issue, this code provision doesn't provide, and there is a big standard format and just print it out and

say doesn't apply, doesn't apply, doesn't apply, staff needs to rethink, relook at how bulky the conditional use, the 309, all those reports are because it's ridiculous when they are 50 and 75 pages long. i hit print today and i got two documents -- oh dear. i don't have this big enough. agenda came out for easter neighborhood cac. and this is supposed to be the list of all of the pipeline projects. staff didn't format it so when you hit print all you got it all. i have the end of this and all of these parts that doesn't make any sense. i did it on my way here and i was going to look at it and i said there's nothing here. the other thing, and i can't tell anything from this list. and i pay attention to these things. this is the map that came out

when i hit print all for easter neighborhood. it's kind of like, we're south of market. and it was formatted by staff and this is the agenda for the meeting on monday night. this is an important item on the agenda to talk about the pipeline. staff should format things assuming they're going to be printed out on 8 1/2 x 11 because that's what people do that are using the home computer. and people generally don't have the ability to print out 11 x 17. and so formatting needs a bit of thought before you send out an agenda and it's going to be tedious to get this done, but i'll do it. thank you. president miguel: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm the chair of the up close san francisco land use committee. i have a letter from judy berkowitz concerning

e-distribution reports and reads doctor president miguel and commissioners, the neighborhoods request that the planning commission oppose to the e-distribution ordinance amending the administrative code by amending the sections to provide electronic distribution of documents because it would restrict, hinder, limit access to vital information which is necessary for good government. many individuals, including seniors, are not connected to the internet, do not have a printer, or have difficulty reading large documents on the computer screen. some may not have a large lcd screen and others may have poor vision. while a printed copy would be available at a cost of 10 cents per page, it could be concerned. and what is the criteria? who spans low income, retired,

etc., and that needs to be verified. please note that all revisions and eastern neighborhood and the extreme difficulty to mark sections for review and electric those for analysis. e-distribution town voluntary, not policy. if san francisco wants an informed public, we must make vital information easily available to the residents. it is the price for good government. signed by judy berkowitz. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? >> commissioners, this is not a good idea. contrary to the findings and also in your resolution or

rather, the findings of your resoluti resolution, this will not -- this will jeopardize the resolution and the resolution says this will not jeopardize public awareness. and as speakers have testified, many people are computer illiterate. i don't use a computer. there are many people in the community who don't. and sue testified about glitches when one does use the computer and commissioner sugaya and miguel talked about the fact that you are not put these copies side by side and compare and tab for differences so you have an understanding of how the iterations are changing or evolving. and they did talk about the three boxes of market octavia.

yes, with all the iterations that came forward on that, it would stack over 6 feet high. the reason you are having maybe more use of paper is that planning is accelerated with the veteran neighborhood program in the executive summary on the second page, it states here that 66% of the paper the city uses is recyclable and that is in ships and recycled papers. the development itself makes for a lot of woodchips, doesn't it, and a lot of free destruction, so we ended up with 33% that comes from whole trees and certainly could be much more that comes from recycled paper and woodchip. and as other people have testified, yes, there will be a lot more use of paper when people don't know what they want really and download everything. when i go into